The Other Animals

Chapter 18

A layer of morning dew resided on the grass, thoroughly soaking Nikolai's paws as he tromped around the territory's border on his morning patrol. He woke up a bit later that morning, despite his usual tendency to rise with the sun. Nikolai guessed he was just stressed about the rogue situation, more so than usual the previous night as he slogged through his stack of paperwork. He hated waking up late, because it shifted his entire schedule for the day later, and was the reason why he was doing patrol at ten instead of eight.

He was almost done when his nose caught a scent being carried over by the soft breeze. It reeked of filth and infection, no doubt coming from a rogue. Growling, his large brown wolf followed the scent right up to the border, where a mangy looking grey rogue stood, staring at him from across the line of brush. He had a large wound on his leg, most likely the source of that diseased flesh smell, which was still fresh and oozing. The rogue immediately bared its teeth and growled, and Nikolai reeled back slightly, in awe at a rogue's audacity to growl at the Alpha of the pack territory he was about to trespass onto.

Nikolai brought out all the stops, barking and snarling, snapping his teeth as saliva dripped from his mouth, which finally sent a potent enough message to the rogue to move along. The rogue quickly averted its stare, jumping over a decaying log before disappearing into the bushes.

Huffing, Nikolai made his way back to the pack house, shaking out his soggy coat in the front yard. These rogues were getting too confident, but it would be frowned upon to actually attack them if they had never stepped foot onto their territory. They could simply continue to harass and spread fear amongst the pack, and there wasn't a damn thing Nikolai could do about it.

Irritated, he stomped up the wooden porch steps and shoved open one of the double doors to the pack house. Inside, he went straight for his office, where Jackson was pacing back and forth on the floor and his father was sitting at his desk.

"Get out of my chair," he growled, getting defensive at someone sitting in his rightful spot as Alpha of the pack.

"Don't get that tone with me, boy. I've had to play Alpha during my retirement since I woke up this morning because you've been off doing god knows what," he grumbled, rubbing the side of his long, bold nose.

"I saw another rogue passing by on morning patrol, wanted to send them a message that if they're going to travel out there, they need to move along and not get so close; maybe they'll tell their little friends," Nikolai huffed, taking over his desk chair as his father got up and moved to one of the armchairs across the desk. "Well, I'm here now. What's the issue? I'll at least look at the paperwork with Glacier tonight."

"Something's off about this, Nikolai. Glacier really wants an alliance with us, they called the office a couple times yesterday and once since this morning, asking me when the papers will be official," Jackson sighed, running his pale hand through his blond hair. "Alpha Hanson seemed to get exasperated whenever I was the one who answered the phone, and I was forced to say that I hadn't the slightest idea what the status was on those papers."

"The impatience and urgency is concerning to say the least, are we sure this pack isn't in trouble with some other pack and now we're about to get roped into some petty conflict?" Norman looked at his son with his hands folded on top of the desk, an impatient expression directed towards the Alpha.

Nikolai sighed, running a hand over his face. "I've looked into their alliance proposal and background, everything seems to be in the clear," Nikolai said as he bent down to open the bottom drawer of the desk, bringing out the thick manila folder full of papers and throwing it down onto the desk. "I'll have a discussion with the Alpha and see what the hell caused that stick to have been lodged so far up his ass."